Glyphosphate

bouicca21

I am actually the only person who ever uses the garden. No one wants to contribute financially or physically to its upkeep bar cutting the lawn. I hired people to clear the worst bit - which is part of the view from my patio - which wasn't just full of bramble but had several large tree stumps sending up suckers everywhere that had to be removed at considerable expense. I have just accepted that if I want it nice I have to do it at my own cost.

I still have a freezer full of last year's blackberries - no one else harvested any. But you never know if someone actually ventured into the garden they just might pick some fruit ... And I really don't want to risk poisoning them.

Davesnave

bouicca21 wrote: »

And I really don't want to risk poisoning them.

So put up a warning notice, although I'm not convinced anyone would be endangered, or even suffer side effects, especially as eating blackberry leaves is very much a minority activity.

Unless your neighbours, like most of mine, are ruminants, that is!:rotfl:

DaftyDuck

MITSTM - if you want, you live your way. Let others live theirs, without the dictatorial "I know I am right, so do as I want" attitude you so often preach. Indeed, no one person in a communal garden has the right to lay down the law - yet you seem to then immediately reverse your position to :if even one of the "owners" won't use glyphosate - then no-one can... How about majority vote? Or he who does the work chooses, or who was first in, or who has health concerns, or.... It's not up to one person to lay dogmatic, slightly ignorant and arrogant views on everybody else.
Your strapline is "Whatever makes you different, that's exactly who you're here on the planet to be, not someone that "fits" with everyone else.".... So, why should we all fit around your wishes and desires? We all have to rub along together; neighbours need to be flexible, gardeners have to accept others choose to do things differently sometimes.... not everybody can fit to other's ways, especially when some take some more extreme attitudes, but we can at least try!

Eating nettles treated with glyphosate will NOT make you ill, in any way you would physically recognise. Psychologically ill, maybe, through inappropriate worry and excessive nervousness, that might do it. Psychosomatic causes of illness abound. But, to get visible health effects from glyphosate in a matter of days, you'd have to glug the bottle. Probably more than one.

The spectre of carcinogenic effects hanging over glyphosate is unfortunate, and it's mainly a statistical abberation of how such matters are investigated. It's an area I have some slight professional experience in (although glyphosate isn't anything to do with me... ) from the last thirty years. For high(er) risk substances, start worrying about gravy granules, Veet, furniture spray polish, several antibiotics, most vitamin supplements, almost all herbal remedies, Oxygen (yep, honest), coffee, tap water in half the UK, and even milk. Actually, the list is endless.... literally. To be fair, it's not entirely the same... but I thought I'd give you a few to worry about for now

ANYONE who picks a blackberry and pops it in "automatic(ally) assum([STRIKE]e[/STRIKE]ing) that OF COURSE everything is done organically" is simply being naive in the extreme. There are any number of causes for those blackberries to be less than wholesome, and a small minority can be ascribed to non-organic causes. Anyone could have sprayed, peead, coughed, thrown away, driven past, burned nearby... the list is endless. We do not live in an organic world, thankfully, or there would be far, far, far more death and starvation.

bouicca, you'll be fine. It is considerate of you to be concerned - and not surprised at that either, given your community-minded, positive attitude to getting things done. Spray, maybe stick up a lebel for 24 hours if you care. However, have you ever seen such a warning sign in any public area (park, supermarket, hospital grounds, college campus, school playing fields....)?

Oh, yes. I forgot pollen on my list of worries. And soil-borne spores. And soil itself. Now there's something that is a serious health risk!

Happy gardening folks!

Mojisola

bouicca21 wrote: »

When I broached doing something about the communal garden with my neighbours a couple said they wanted to take over bits of it. They have of course done nothing to clear these areas. They have some bramble - not so far growing very strongly, and loads of ivy.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Bear in mind its a communal garden and that means everyone has to agree about things. That being the case - if even one of the "owners" won't use glyphosate - then no-one can.

It should be those who are undertaking the work who decide how it should be done.

Farway

Bouicca, from what you say I reckon he who pays piper calls the tune, spray away, stick label up, which everyone will ignore anyway

I have seen labels on fruit & veg, which are more a deterrent aimed at those who see someone else's allotment / garden as a free POY greengrocer, which seems not to be the case with your area

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm just remembering a nationally-known (been on tv etc) forager who told me in pretty graphic detail how ill he had been made by the chemicals someone had sprayed onto (wild) foodstuffs - which he had then, unknowingly, foraged to eat. The well-known ones will tell you how to spot signs that the (wild) food has been contaminated - but it's not something that would show up instantly as soon as it had been done. I believe it takes a day or two for signs of contamination to show up on the plant - and not everyone has been educated to spot it.

It's very easy to assume that everything is done the way it is in your own area/the way you do things...and then realise subsequently that isnt necessarily the case....

NOTE: Bouicca said its a "communal garden" (post 1, line 2) and that means anyone/everyone that is a joint owner of that garden might well pick food in it - and would be entitled to do so (even if it wasnt growing wild - as is the case with these brambles).

DaftyDuck

Hang on MITSTM, any forager worth his oats would know not to forage where anyone might conceivably spray. Not ever! I've trundled around with my near-neighbour Richard Mabey on general foraging, and poked about looking for fungi with Harry Hudson in the past (all he really taught me was DON'T!), and purity from contamination is first on the list with them.

NEVER forage unless you know what you are doing. Don't pick and taste unless you are sure what it is, what it should taste like, and what it would taste like if it isn't "right". That's vital. Never make assumptions that it's what or how you want it to be... people die that way (particularly foragers of fungi... it's lethal if you get it wrong, and it only takes a small quantity, and there's often nothing whatsoever that can be done if you get it wrong).

Being "entitled" (aaarggh I hate how that word gets so misused) does not remove ones responsibility. Anyone who pops a berry in their gob needs to be self-responsible for doing so. If Bouicca sprays now, and dopes so excessively as heck all the way through the summer, were there to be any berries (and there won't), they will not be toxic. If anyone has any 'igh-falutin beliefs about how and what they want their food to be, that's their choice, and their responsibility. Same with the countryside.

If any of her communal neighbours wishes to follow some organic ethos; fine. It's their responsibility to ensure products meet their high expectations. It's not up to someone to say to anyone else; "because I want to follow X, you must do Y".

Bouicca - if you are short of gardening projects, drop by... I could do with your enthusiasm and muscles! :rotfl:

bouicca21

Enthusiasm possibly. Muscles a definite no!

bouicca21

Actually I did the dirty deed this morning, but the bramble and ivy are so rampant that I could only spray the front half of the bed.

Money if you want a trip to the great metrolops to show me how to get rid of bramble organically, I have a sofa bed in my spare room.

Bear in mind however that the bit I had cleared in the autumn and which was treated with a stump grinder to a depth of at least 18 inches all over, is still pushing out tiny bramble plants that I am having to remove. Also that the bramble I haven't tried to clear fills some 50 foot of remaining bed, is growing into the lawn and is colonising a further 80 foot bed at the bottom of the garden.

Ectophile

You can get rid of it organically, provided you have a lot of patience and can find an organic backache remedy!

Chop it down. Dig out the "stumps" with a sturdy fork or similar. Then just keep mowing anything that springs up until it gives up - which could take a few years.